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Iconic Metabolism Recalled at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA): ¡®The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower¡¯

exhibition Lee Sowoon Jul 31, 2025


SPACE July 2025 (No. 692)  

 

 

Image from Nakagin Capsule Style (2020), showing the interior of a capsule customised by Wakana Nitta (a.k.a Cosplay Koe-chan) as a DJ booth. Image courtesy of Tatsuyuki Maeda / The Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Restoration Project, Tokyo, Japan 

 

Kurokawa Kisho¡¯s Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972, covered in SPACE No. 652), an icon of the Japanese postwar Metabolism movement, returns to public view at an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Opening on July 10, ¡®The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower¡¯ revisits the building¡¯s half-century-long narrative, from its 1972 debut in Tokyo¡¯s Ginza district to its dismantling in 2022. Conceived as a prototype for a future city that could grow and adapt like a living organism, the tower embodied Metabolism¡¯s core ideas, even though its envisioned capsule-replacement system never came to life. Over time, however, the capsules evolved organically: repurposed as tearooms, galleries, libraries, and DJ booths, they reflected the shifting rhythms of city living. MoMA¡¯s exhibition centres on Capsule A1305, now restored to near-original condition, and features over 45 archival materials including architectural models, blueprints, ephemera, films, and interviews. As the show explores how these tiny dwellings adapted far beyond their original aims, it invites a larger question: in cities that demand constant renewal, can architecture remain relevant not by resisting change, but by embracing it? The exhibition will be on show until July 12, 2026. 


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